Be back soon

I don’t like writing these - give me a few days - posts but sometimes they’re essential and I think it’s better than just not updating.

I have a very busy week ahead of me this week for various reasons, including a large chunk of compulsary legal training at work.

So I’m going to say ‘be back soon’ just in case I don’t find time to blog in the next few days but with a side note that I reserve the right to post if someone REALLY annoys me, captures my attention or drives me to blog.

I wanted to post something about Micheal Grade leaving the BBC for ITV but really don’t have time to do it justice.

I’ll just say that I think it’s a good thing for both the BBC and ITV. Not because I don’t think he’s been very good for the beeb (I DO think he’s beed very good) but because I think ITV need him more and a strong ITV is very good for the BBC.

As a parting gift I’ll leave you with a photo I took of my daughter blowing out the candles on her birthday cake on Monday.

I’m told (by her) that I need to say ’she’s six’. Oceana has been going around telling anyone and everyone that will listen this piece of information.

While I’m on the subject she came out with a funny line on her birthday over dinner. She said “now I’m six I can call you mum and dad instead of mummy and daddy”.

If you do see a post in the next few days that is more generic than current issue related, this is because I have a couple of posts half written that I might find the time to finish.

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It’s all gone viral

According to a BBC survey, viral clips online are cutting into the time ‘young people’ would have spent watching television. To be honest though, we didn’t need a survey to tell us that. The fact that a video of a fat kid swinging a broom about has been watched 900 million times tells us all we need to know.

The basic point of the survey was to find out if people watch less television as a result of watching online video clips. The headline across news websites is that more people are watching less tv if they watch more than one viral clip a week.

The BBC has says in their news online report “Some 43% of Britons who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal TV as a result.”

What that doesn’t tell you, but the graph on the same report does is that 54% of people watching at least one viral clip a week don’t watch any less television as a result.

What was much more interesting was the breakdown of percentage viral watching by age group. Obviously the largest group was the 16-24 year olds. Around 28% of that group watch viral video at least once a week.

Also, unsuprisingly was that the percentage dropped the further up the age scale you got. Until the last two that is. More people in the 65+ age group watch viral videos than those aged 55-65.

The viral virus has been catching on to such an incredible extent that, as well as producing their own viral masterpieces, TV companies are trying to pull the viral stars into their marketplace.

We saw recently the big Newsnight push for people to create their own reports and post them to YouTube et al, then recently the BBC announced that News 24 would have an all UGC show.

You News launched on November 25 and is apparently the first news programme where all the content is generated by members of the public. It draws on the 10 thousand+ emails the BBC gets every day with stories, features and video clips.

The controller of BBC News 24,Kevin Bakhurst said “Your News will make use of the huge range of material being sent into the BBC by the public, some of which has already provided real newsgathering value.

“Your News will reflect the stories catching our audience’s eye and talking to them directly about the issues they feel really matter.”

The programme goes out every Saturday at 03:30 and 15:30 and Sundays at 10:30 and 23:30 throughout December. All clips will be credited on air.

Call me an old synic but this does feel a bit like a more serious version of ‘You’ve Been Framed’ doesn’t it? Instead of people kicking cats, children falling into a paddling pool or wedding dresses being torn off by a wayward small child we have people giving thoughts and opinions on issues that matter to them.

Obviously it’s a MUCH better use of the medium but it really isn’t THAT new. I’m not sure that trying to solve the problem of people watching the web instead of TV by putting web like content on the TV is going to help either.

Ricky Gervais, the first person any media outlet turns to for comment on web media since his record breaking podcast said: “You can’t knock up an episode of The Sopranos or 24 on a little handheld digital camera.”

He also went on to talk about how he does think TV companies will embrace the new media and something about people not having tellies when the BBC launched. I can see the point he was making but I’m not sure it’s completely relevant to this situation.

However he does get it right with the Sopranos and 24 comment. I think this move to put web on TV is going in the wrong direction. Instead of trying to put the things people watch online on their television in the hope they will watch it their instead - tv companies should be pushing the concept of TV on the web harder.

I know Channel 4 are going head first with 4oD, the BBC are launching the iPlayer and already have a load of shows and clips through the BBC TWO website but this should be universal.

TV companies should be ‘doing a YouTube’ and making things easily, quickly and hassle free for consumers who just want to watch an interesting clip.

The iPlayer and 4oD are great concepts but they target something different to the YouTube audience.

The people tuning into YouTube in their millions and not watching as much TV (the people this survey is bleeting on about) are, in the most part, just looking for something original, quick and interesting.

The BBC TWO website gets this aspect almost right. It makes a variety of clips available from a variety of shows as well as extended bits. The BBC Regional TV Broadband trial is pretty close too - it makes every report from every bulletin available as seperate clips.

The problem with this though is it all lacks the two most important aspects of the YouTube success. Community and distribution. OK so the BBC TWO website lets you send an e-mail to a friend with a clip in but that’s not what I’m talking about.

For the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and all the others to really capture that audience and pull them in they need to provide people with a line of code that lets them put the clips from … say Top Gear … on their own website, blog, message board or whatever comes next.

They need to open comments, voting and debate on every single clip - turn the video of the ‘faith race’ from Top Gear into a community all of it’s own. People can leave comments on it’s page, see related clips down the side, rate the clips and easily put it, in a flash script on their own website.

So instead of TV companies pushing for people to move back to watching TV by putting their favourite web clips on the box - move your content on to the web in an easy to use, easy to share format.

Also by offering it themselves it would probably stop people posting the same clips to YouTube or Google Video and show the fact that it was originally created by the BBC because the BBC logo would appear on the corner of the flash window on every site the clip appeared.

Check out the BBC’s Future of TV section for a great roundup.

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Broadcast the Pod

I’m feeling a little bit dirty. For the second time in a week I’m writing a blog post praising Ofcom for doing something wonderfuly sensible. It just doesn’t seem right at all.

However I am going to praise them. The iTrip and its ilk are set to become legal in the UK for the first time. Until now they had been banned under the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949.

Since it first started coming to public attention in 2003 the whole being banned under a 60 year old law has been a bit of a laughing point for me. That’s the problem with laws about technology.

Technology changes very quickly, new practices and skills come in that let us do things that had never been thought possible before but are now easy. The iTrip is a prime example of this. It’s a very simple, small device that plugs into an iPod letting you broadcast the output of your iPod to a radio player.

Once upon a time, to broadcast an the FM band you would need one hell of a lot of expensive equipment and a lot of money. Now for a few quid you can do it on the move. But it doesn’t broadcast at a high enough power to really cause any inteference with any existing radio stations - so I don’t see what the problem was - and obviously neither did Ofcom.

People have been buying and using the iTrip in the UK for years so to be honest it wasn’t a brave move on the part of Ofcom - just a sensible one. In Jersey you’ve actually been able to go into shops on the high street and buy one including HMV.

Ofcom have also removed the need for a licence to operate a CB radio in the UK. Now I didn’t know you needed a licence at all to be honest. I used mine all the time as a teenager, big aerial on the roof and CB radio in the loft - oh well, this might start a resurgence of the original ‘long distance chat room’.

The ruling comes into force in December but will only apply to equipment carrying the CE mark that means it’s legal for sale within Europe. Basically versions of the iTrip that broadcast on the lowest possible power.

Which is a shame to be honest. I like the idea of being a bit mischevious with it. Like going into a shop playing a rent-a-sound local radio station, getting the iTrip to broadcast on a close frequency and then standing in the shop re-broadcasting a selection of alternatives tunes or a couple of top podcasts.

Next move for Ofcom or the government (whoever has responsibility) is to change the stupid law making criminals out of anyone in Britain transferring tracks from their CDs to an iPod. Lets get that removed and while you’re at it take the restriction off transferring DVDs to computer as well.

Blogosphere - there are links to other blogs talking about this exact same subject from random words throughout the post.

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Nothing Special Day

I was listening to BBC Radio Jersey today and apparently there will be stories on the fact that today is National Clean Your Gutter Day, National Eat Squirrel Day and National Something or Other day.

Basically we seem to have got ourselves in a situation where there are about seven special days for every actual day. Every day of the week, every week of the month and every month of the year has something special assigned to it.

Then, on top of that you’ve got National God Knows What Week and National Praise The Monkey Months. They will praise, promote showcase or examine something for every day. We are worshipping at the alter of consumerism and worshipping the god of marketing.

Well I’m going to start a campaign and I’m hoping you’ll join me. I think we need to say no to the gutters, no to the milk, cows, squirrels and donkeys. We need to leave the marketing master at the alter and say ‘I’m out for the day’.

Unfortunatly though, in this age of a day for everything we can’t just say ‘this day has nothing’, so we need to launch a new day just for that purpose.

Join me, stand up and be counted, mark it in your diary’s - ladies and gentlemen I give you - National Nothing Special Day Day.

Aside from the fact that it’s a chance to do nothing special and mark a day as a normal day it also doesn’t have to be marked on any specific date and can be recognised more than once in a year.

In fact do what I do and remember ‘National Nothing Special Day Day’ on everything but the real rememberence occasions. Things like November 11 and in Jersey Liberation Day.

Feel free to add the ‘Today is Nothing Special Day Day’ button to your website if you agree with the campaign and want to show your support for not supporting these nonsense special days.

<a href="http://www.upyourego.com/blog/"><img src="http://www.upyourego.com/images/nothing_special_btn.gif" alt="Nothing Special Day Day" /></a>

I’m in full support of marking appropriate occasions in an appropriate way but this god of all things marketing approach to special days needs to be stopped - It’s gone beyond ‘a bit of fun’ and is turning into a right pain in the backside.

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No net day

My boss was musing on the idea of no music day. Unfortunately this musing turned into an idea, an idea that would see me giving up one of my biggest addictions for a whole day.

I should really start with an introduction. Hello my name is Ryan and I’m an internet addict.

Not your ordinary need to check my e-mail every day addict, but the sort of addict that gets panic attacks at the very thought of being away from the net for more than a few hours.

This is, in part due to the fact that since leaving school, every job I’ve done has involved working online, all day. Mainly though, it’s because I’m a geek and have a real passion for the internet.

So you can imagine my reaction when my boss told me I was going to be disconnected for 24 hours to help research an article on what would happen if there was no internet.

My first reaction was to start typing my letter of resignation, but I quickly thought about my wife and the pain she would inflict if I quit my job over something as “silly” as the internet, and closed Word.

Then I tried talking him round and convincing him that other people would be much better for the job – this failed – so now I’m facing 24 hours without my lifeblood, I’m going to be offline for a whole day.

There is only one exception to the ‘no net rule’. I’m allowed to logon to our content management system so I can carry on doing my job but I can’t visit websites, use iTunes, talk on messenger or, and this is the hardest part, check my e-mail.

Normally I start my day by turning the computer on first thing in the morning. I use this time to check my e-mail, have a quick glance at the weather and news headlines and then update my podcasts.

Then when I get to work I check my e-mail and have a more in depth look at various news websites to see what’s happening in the world.

I’ll read a few blogs to get an idea what people think of the stories I read that morning, and then look around a few Jersey websites and message boards to see what’s happening in the island.

Throughout the day I’ll be using the net almost constantly to research stories, find out information, answer questions and generally do my job.

Then when I get home my life online continues. I’ll listen to a few BBC Radio shows on demand, update my podcasts again, check my e-mail, browse news websites for the latest stories and maybe watch a few TV shows on demand.

I’ll chat to friends in message boards, chat rooms and post comments on their blogs, I’ll read things on Wikipedia or other ‘information’ sites to expand my understanding of a subject and then I’ll just look for stupid things – just for fun.

On top of all the things I do on a daily basis, I’ll book flights, buy music, books, and gadgets, find information on holiday destinations, bills and general lifestyle things online as well.

When I re-install Windows on my computer, or set a new one up with Windows or Linux the first thing I do is get the internet working. Then if, for some reason I can’t get it working, I have a panic attack.

I keep spare broadband modems, dial-up modems, WiFi cards and WiFi routers just in case one breaks and if the problem isn’t one I can fix I’ll constantly call everyone at every level of my internet providers service chain until I get it fixed.

So you can probably already guess how hard this is going to be for me. But in the interests of a good story I’m going to give it ago.

The idea is that by going without the internet I’ll get an idea of some of the issues the world would face without that connection we’ve all become dependent on.

So keep an eye on bbc.co.uk/jersey and I’ll let you know when I do it.

The article is going to be more of a light hearted feature than an in depth look at the crash and burn the world would likely face without the internet. I’m not an international economist - I’m a journalist with a passion for new media, so it’s going to come from a consumer inconvenience angle.

But it should still be interesting all the same.

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Play with BBpress

I’ve just installed BBpress, the message board software from the team behind Wordpress on a site I’ve been stuck with ideas for. JsyNews.com started life as a news aggragator for news services in the Channel Islands but due to ‘legal issues’ I had to remove the feeds and close down the site.

Since then I’ve set the homepage up with the Google co-op search feature that just searches sites about or based in Jersey.

The problem is I wanted to do more than this. So I’ve installed the bbPress software and it looks and works brilliantly. It’s a bit of a hassle to set up and I wouldn’t recommend doing it unless you have a knowledge of PHP.

It’s only a matter of time before it’s finished and given a full release complete with the easy to use Wordpress setup functionality and templating but right now you have to edit the templates and config files in something like notepad.

However I have got it up and running if anyone wants to have a play with it. Just head over to jsynews.com/bbpress.

I might install the WordPress Multi-user 1.0 software next and give users the opportunity to set up their own blogs at jsynews.com but I don’t know if I can be bothered with the hassle of it.

What I might actually do instead is built a proper template and set the forum up at my wifes wordpress powered site for her healthy food in schools campaign. Jerseyparents.org.uk.

If you DO have a small amount of PHP knowledge and are looking for a message board I WOULD consider bbPress. It’s a very different message board system that works differently and looks differently to the more traditional systems used on sites like DigitalSpy.

It features really good RSS functionality, has tags for every entry and has some pretty neat AJAX stuff. You see tags on the left, latest discussions at the top and the actual blog folders down the bottom.

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I’m a Wii

Note: It may be that, not living in the US and not having a knowledge of US TV channels and programming I may have got the wrong end of the stick and the content of this post is wrong. I’m assuming the video featured is an actual advert but it might just be a comedy skit. If it is then ignore and take this as a ‘if it were real’ post.

They say immitation is the highest form of flattery or something like that anyway - well now Nintendo have had a go at creating an Apple style advert for the Wii.

This makes sense because, to be honest, I’ve always thought that if Apple made a games console it would be very much like the Nintendo Wii - it’s the one I’d get if I had the time and money to play games consoles.

Unfortunately I have neither. I’ve had a Playstation 2 since about a month after it came out and I’ve played it four times at most. My Playstation 1 suffered a similar fate.

Nintendo’s new viral ad features two people, one playing the Playstation 3 (in the I’m a PC role) and another playing the Wii (in the I’m a MAC role).

However, unlike the PC v Mac adverts this one does make you want a Wii - well it would if you could actually concentrate for long enough to get the message anyway

The PS3 is portayed by a, lets say slightly larger girl who is a bit booky. She talks about enjoying world war 2 games, being stable and Blue Ray. She also tells us how her vibrate function is disabled, has lots of buttons to work out and is expensive because ‘people know expensive things are quality’.

On the other hand, the Wii is played by a bubbly blonde cheerleader type in hardly any clothes. You see her talks about being ‘all about fun’ and how she ‘likes go-carts - vroom vroom’. The only jar is the bit where she says ‘I’m cheep’ and then does a bit of a wiggle.

Each of the two have a couple of great lines though. The Wii girl says “All you have to do is touch me and you’ll have the time of your life” and “I’m just peppy”. The PS3 girl says “I’m large and in charge” and “have you ever heard of blue ray? It’s the future”.

It’s well worth watching.

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Sampson the Spaceman

My son has an imaginary friend that lives in a space rocket across the street from us. His name is Sampson and he’s very big. My son has just turned three - his imaginary friend has come along two years earlier than his sisters did (she got bored of her imaginary friend after about two months).

I couldn’t be prouder of the little geek. I love the fact that his imaginary friend lives in a spacerocket. I’m going to sit down with him and write a series of kid friendly sci-fi stories about ‘Sampson the Spaceman’.

I think there is a whole new market here. Sci-Fi for pre-school geeks. There are a couple of things on Cbeebies for this demographic - Lunar Jim and something in storymakers involving a spaceman and his dog but I think there is room for one more.

So lets see - thinking out loud here and remembering we’re talking about three year olds. Sampson is a big, brave astronaut living in the 21st Century just after the discovery of a technology that can find a planet on a sky map and take you straight there at the push of a button.

In each book we could start with Sampson entering his spacerocket and going to the map room. He finds the planet he wants to visit says some brilliant catch phrase I haven’t thought of yet, clicks the big red button, goes wooosh, wooo, and weeer a lot and then arrives just above the planet with some prominent feature visible from space.

Sampson could then go down to that prominent feature, meet a really interesting alien creature, get into a bit of trouble, solve a problem, make friends and then go back to his rocket, push the big red button to go home, land and then say something like ‘time for bed but there are plenty more planets and many more adventures for another day’.

What do you think?

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Moving junk online

According to the Chief Executive of the second largest ad group in the world, Sir Martin Sorrell, advertising budgets that would have been spent on Junk Food ads on TV will now move online.

Provided it’s done creatively, and in the article it’s suggested it will be (YouTube, branded pages etc) then I think this is a great thing for what is fast becoming the biggest advertising market of them all.

However I think companies like Burger King and Dominos could go a lot further than just paying a website to re-brand their homepage in the Dominos corporate colours.

Even the most conservative estimates of how much this will see TV companies out of pocket by is in the tens of millions of pounds a year, some even go into hundreds of thousands as possible lost revenue.

If you add that to what must be a fairly substantial production cost per advert and you’re talking about a very large marketing budget.

I think the advertisers should look to become the broadcasters.

If someone like Dominos brought online ad-supported rights to a show like South Park (there is demand - see allsp.com) then wrapped the whole thing in a site design that was in their own branding, maybe having the player window on the front of a Dominoes pizza box, they would have a direct link to the customer.

OK so this isn’t going to help get the kids in but it will convince the group that has more disposable income, eats more junk food by default, but are very fickle in terms of brands to move to your side.

Dominoes could even have a little AJAX form just left of the player so you could order a pizza from the same page while watching the episode - marketing, retail and loyalty being built and serviced from a single webpage - nice!

They could also tie the idea of broadcasting shows they’ve acquired the online rights to with a branded YouTube channel. That way they can still have their branding everywhere, still broadcast the show but get a MUCH wider audience than the ones that would visit the brands website to find the video.

Impluse is a great thing to tap into, so is the increasing desire to watch video on demand online (although not universal - post coming soon). For a company like Dominos, having a captive potential buyer watching something on a page for half an hour added to an easy to use ‘buy a pizza’ form is magic.

Don’t tell my wife I’ve been coming up with ideas to help Junk Food companies though. Her latest crusade is to get rid of Junk Food in Jersey schools and so Junk Food is a banned word in our house at the moment.

Although interestingly so is Top Gear because she’s fed up with hearing about my campaign to get people to vote for it as an English ICON (do it now). One rule for her and another for me (when I tell her this she points out that her campaign is to improve childrens health and mine is for a silly boys tv show).

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